September 20, 2016

Alex Drlica-Wagner’s playground is between 1 million and 100,000 light years from Earth. Scouring at such distances in the immediate neighborhood of the Milky Way, Dr. Drlica-Wagner looks for the elusive dark matter.

His job has been somewhat trendily described as a “dark matter hunter”, searching for something that is believed to constitute 27% of the universe. Contrast that with the barely 5% constituted by baryonic matter or normal matter, of the kind that everything we can see and experience is made of. Add to this the scientific consensus that 68% of the universe is dark energy and one begins to get a measure of how important this dark world is.

What is even more fundamental is that there is scientific consensus that it is this yet undetected dark world which has ensured that hundreds of billions of galaxies and many trillions of stars do not eventually tear apart. Dark matter is that mysterious celestial glue that seems to hold things together.

Although the existence of dark matter has been postulated variously for four centuries since the 1600s, the way the scientific community understands and studies it was first suggested by the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in 1933. While studying the Comma galaxy cluster in 1933 and concluded that the gravitational mass of the galaxies in that particular cluster was 400 times greater than what their luminosity suggested. From that calculation Zwicky inferred the cluster had matter that could not be seen—dark.

“The general status has evolved a lot since then. We have a much better understanding of what dark matter is not and what it could be,” Drlica-Wagner told me in an interview at Fermilab. He is holds a PhD in physics from Stanford in “Searching for Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies and other Galactic Dark Matter Substructures with the Fermi Large Area Telescope.” Currently, he is the Schramm Experimental Fellow at the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics. He is a member of both the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). His primary research focus is the search for dark matter through indirect detection and astrophysical probes. In short, he knows a thing or two or may be even three about dark matter.

Drlica-Wagner explains that mass of objects such as galaxies or cluster of galaxies can be measured by how much light they produce or measuring how fast they are moving. “Gravitational attraction pulls objects harder and the harder it pulls the faster things go. So you would hope that those two methods would lead to the same mass,” he says. Unfortunately, they do not. There is a giant discrepancy between the two calculations, the way Zwicky had found.

How giant is that discrepancy? “It is roughly a factor of six that they are off by. So there is about six times more dark matter than what we can account for in what we can see,” he says. In a sense, all galaxies, stars, planets and everything else in the light world is cosmically groping about in the universe. That is what Drlica-Wagner and many others are trying to study.

Early on in the history of dark matter, it was thought that a lot of the actual objects made of baryonic matter could explain the missing mass; objects such as space rocks, asteroids, rocky planets and gas which do not emit much might and hence are dark. (Gas is hot and X-ray emitting but it is not in the optical range.)

“Could there be normal matter that cannot be seen? Over time we have gradually through various techniques narrowed down that it can’t really be normal matter that makes up all the dark matter. As instruments get better we find that there is some components of matter that is made up of things that we are not used to experiencing and is outside what we call the Standard Model of particle physics that make up this extra mass,” he says.

Drlica-Wagner says what is animating the debate is a search for a new particle that could be constituting dark matter. He clarifies that it is an “open question” whether it is a particle or particles. “It could be a single one. It could be more complicated,” he says.

In recent weeks and months, there appears to be a visible surge in the science media’s interest in dark matter because it remains one of astronomy’s big unresolved questions. Descriptions such as “the dark sector” or “the ghost world” with some loaded philosophical hints have gained ground. Could the realization that between dark matter and dark energy we barely know 5% of the universe be a source of intellectual exasperation? Drlica-Wagner answers that in the quintessential manner of a physicist which is to say without giving it any emotional underpinnings.

“It is more a sense of excitement and opportunity. It is a huge opportunity we have to make very large steps towards increasing our understanding of the fundamental building blocks of the universe. I don’t sit troubled in my chair worrying (about the emotional aspect of it). It is very exciting to try and actively seek out what the dominant components of the universe are,” he says.

One particular question that has deeply interested me is what astrophysicist such as Drlica-Wagner might expect to be the most striking feature of dark matter when they do eventually find it. “That’s a great question. The dark matter problem is an astrophysical problem. We see the signatures of this missing mass when we look out at the universe. There is another problem in particle physics, which is why do the particles, have the masses that they do? Why is that scale so different from some of the fundamental scales at which we believe particle physics operates? This is another big question in particle physics now where one of the possible solutions is that you have an entire spectrum of new particles that have not been discovered yet. This is often called supersymmetry. One thing that is very exciting is that perhaps these two problems that at first seemed disconnected could both be solved by the same extra particle. So the dark matter particle could also be a supersymmetric particle,” he says.

In terms of Dr. Drlica-Wagner’s specific observational work, he spends time at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in the Chilean Andes where he was this June. He uses the observatory to look at dwarf galaxies between 1 million and 100,000 light years away in his quest for dark matter to collect upto 300 images every night. Dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way’s neighborhood are dark matter-dominated . His particular interest is searching for evidence of dark matter in gamma rays, using the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). A backgrounder on his official page explains, “Dwarf galaxies are rich in dark matter but lack astrophysical gamma-ray production, making them prime candidates for dark matter detection. Additionally, numerical simulations predict that many more dwarf galaxies are yet undiscovered. Dark matter decay or annihilation in these galaxies would cause them to shine as unassociated gamma-ray sources.”

In the context of the pervasiveness of dark matter, he puts it in a strikingly picturesque manner. “We do live within a bath of dark matter. Similarly, we do live within a bath of neutrinos. Neutrinos are much lighter particles but they are similarly hard to detect. It took a very long time for us to detect neutrinos and then measure the very rare interactions that do occur as they pass through us all the time. The idea of dark matter is very similar that. There are these particles that interact very, very rarely and pass through us all the time,” he says.

One recurring question that I ask all physicists has to do with balancing the profundities of their professional work with the relative trivialities of everyday life. I was interested to find out how Dr. Drlica-Wagner, as preoccupied as he is with a staggering question like dark matter and spends time observing structures so far away, squares those with his mundane concerns. Also, in doing so does he not get bored? He was amused by the question even as he instantly understood its drift.

If my intention were to find out whether he can take mundane life seriously after being embarked on a fundamental search, he said, “One can turn the question around and ask whether what I observe 1 million light years away has any bearing at all on our normal daily lives. That is an equally important question.”

September 19, 2016

Dark matter is one of the big questions in astrophysics because its existence or otherwise is fundamental to what the universe may or may not be. It has fascinated me personally for decades as a dabbler in physics and I have written about it occasionally. As a prelude to two upcoming posts about dark matter the following is what I wrote on September 13.

Searching for dark matter that may or may not exist feels like a staggering paradox. It is believed to constitute some 27% of our universe. Add to this the scientific consensus that 68% of the universe is dark energy and you are left with just 5% of what we can directly see and/or experience in the universe.

That 5% includes all stars, galaxies, asteroids, dust, you, I and Hillary Clinton. Also, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un as well Kim Kardashian. My point is everything we can directly prove the existence of is just a niggardly 5%. Hence the search for dark matter. That search or at any rate deep interest in that search took me to the iconic Fermilab yesterday to meet Dr. Alex Drlica-Wagner. He holds a PhD in physics from Stanford in “Searching for Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies and other Galactic Dark Matter Substructures with the Fermi Large Area Telescope.” Currently, he is Schramm Experimental Fellow at the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics. He is a member of both the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). His primary research focus is the search for dark matter through indirect detection and astrophysical probes. In short, he knows a thing or two or may be even three about dark matter.

Today, I publish the first of the two posts which is my video interview with Dr. Drlica-Wagner. Given the space limitation of my phone I couldn't do more than 10 minutes of video which is what I present today. Tomorrow, I will publish a slightly larger story incorporating much of what he says here as well as other salient points he made beyond this interview.

In recent years, the search for dark matter has become a key area of astrophysics because of the sheer suspected scale of its existence. Now there are those who speculate that there could well be a whole dark world which is a parallel to our light world. This is the stuff of science fiction which could well become science fact. As Dr. Drlica-Wagner points out, if baryonic matter or normal matter of the kind that makes everything that we can see, including us, is complicated, there is no reason to think that dark matter will be something normal. So until we find dark matter and even a dark world and dark life, enjoy light. A more extensive story tomorrow.

September 18, 2016

Canvases can be expensive, particularly if your paintings do not sell at the commensurate rate. Mine don’t. That necessitates having to invent when it comes to materials to paint on. As a result, I am discovering the joys of painting on cardboard boxes cutouts.

Packaging material is designed for some measure of durability and rough handling. That gives cardboard a certain firmness which is very different from ordinary sketch paper or canvas. The other day when I ran out of canvases but still had some paint left I looked around my house and found a couple big cardboard boxes. Looking at their sides and flaps it struck me that they could make for an excellent surface to paint on. I was right. One advantage with cardboard is that it is already primed and does not require a lot of paint as the first coat. One disadvantage is that a majority of them have the brown-khaki color which mutes paint considerably. So that advantage is immediately offset.

I overcame this problem by using a palette knife. Spreading the paint with a palette knife, almost as if you are scraping it, creates some remarkable texture because of the corrugation and ribs in the cardboard. It gives paintings a terrain-like feature which is very hard to create on a regular surface. One can paint that on a canvas but it requires a great deal of skill and time, the former I lack, the latter I have a lot of.

Cardboard boxes also work very well for me because of my near pathological fixation for the letterbox-like aspect ration that many boxes have on their sides. For me it is like painting a movie frame.

I suggest my fellow painters give cardboard a shot as painting surface. Layers of paint only help it make stiffer than canvas. One might even end up marginally contributing to recycling. Here are some of my cardboard-based paintings. (It is amusing the lengths to which I go to eventually only showcase my paintings.)

September 17, 2016

Today it is the day to plug my wares. VIDA now has on sale a new line of tote bags featuring paintings and artworks from around the world. Mine are there too. Some of my recent canvases are available as totes made of weather resistant fabric with dual 100% natural cotton bull denim shoulder straps. It also features six new modal scarves.

Priced competitively Totes ($55) and scarves ($40) make lovely Christmas or any gifts. So do me a favor and buy one. It might just keep my journalism alive. Speaking of journalism, tomorrow my interview with a dark matter hunter. The tote below is based on a painting called Dark Matter.

September 16, 2016

I did the following interview for The Wire, one of India’s most respected news sites.

By Mayank Chhaya

The recent discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the star closest to the Sun, within within the star’s habitable zone has caused a lot of excitement among the international astronomy community.

Guillem Anglada-Escudé, an astronomer at Queen Mary University of London and leader of the team that made the discovery, says Proxima b, as the planet is called, is “an ideal target” to look for life on.

Located within a system that is just 4.3 lightyears, or 40 trillion kilometres, from Earth – a distance regarded as next door in cosmic terms – Proxima b is now among the most coveted exoplanets to determine habitability.

Proxima b is 1.3 times the mass of Earth and orbits its red-dwarf star every 11.2 days. Although the spectrographic evidence of such a planet has been observed since 2000, it was only in January 2016 that Anglada-Escudé and his team decided to make a definite determination using the European Southern Observatory (ESO) facilities. Between January 19 and March 31, they studied it for 20 minutes each night. The finding of their work was reported in the journal Nature to international headlines.

Adding to the excitement over the discovery are the expectations of a breakthrough in laser-propelled interstellar probes that can travel at 20% the speed of light, covering the distance to Proxima b in 20 years.

The question of whether life can actually exist on Proxima b is very much in the realm of speculation. Its distance, although relatively close to its star compared to Earth’s from the Sun, is mitigated by the fact that it orbits a red-dwarf star that is smaller and dimmer than the Sun. Its distance may make it friendly to liquid water on its surface but given that it is tidally-locked with its star makes thing much more difficult.

Being tidally-locked means it is always the same side of the planet that faces its star – the way the same side of the Moon does Earth. This causes a dramatic difference in surface temperatures between either halves of the planet.

For Anglada-Escudé, there is rather personal joy to discovering the planet because of his lifelong passion for such exploration, and his particular interest in a science fiction novel named Proxima by Stephen Baxter. The book is centered on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri.

He answered questions from The Wire by email. Excerpts:

Is it fair to say that when it comes to exploring life on exoplanets there could not be a better location than Proxima b in terms of its proximity to Earth and given likely advances in laser-powered interstellar probes?

Yes, It is an ideal target because of proximity to Earth and also Star-planet contrast. The only drawback is that the orbit is relatively close to the star. Some direct imaging instruments might be able to resolve it, but it is really at the limit of current plans. However, designs might be slightly tweaked given that the planet is now known to be there.

In the very recent past, there have been a few possible candidates for Earth-like exoplanets but Proxima b seems most promising. Can you describe the fundamental features that you looked for to establish its credentials?

I would not say is the best Earth-like planet found so far. I would say this is one of the possibly Earth-like planets where we have better chances of getting more information. All boils down to its observational advantages. From a philosophical point of view, it would be way better detecting an Earth-like planet around more massive Sun-like stars (like the two Alpha Centauri stars, A and B), but observationally speaking at least we have realistic chances of being able to deduce some basic information from its atmosphere using near future observatories.

Would you describe the detection of starlight shift that helped you determine the existence of this planet?

We used the Doppler method. It consists on measuring the radial velocity of the star caused by its motion around the center of mass of the system. That is, the planet and the star orbit the common center of mass. What we measure is the back and forth motion of the star that follow the orbit of the planet.

Would it be accurate to say – if and when Proxima b’s friendliness to water and life is confirmed – that the circumstances under which life can evolve around the universe are pretty diverse and eclectic?

Yes. If by any chance we detect evidence of life on Proxima, is would very likely mean that the universe is full of inhabited planets. The contrary (absence of life) would not be very informative though. At least, if we get information on the putative atmosphere we can calibrate our models to narrow down the best spots for life.

I ask because in terms of their sizes and other parameters our sun and the red-dwarf around which Proxima b are so different. Also, one is struck by the orbital differences of our 365 days compared to Proxima b’s 11.2 days. And yet, it could also harbor life simply because the habitable distances are different.

The number itself is not that important. The compact orbit has consequences in terms of the tidal/rotation state of the planet. For example, we strongly suspect that it is synchronously rotating with the orbit in the same way the Moon is locked to Earth (we always see the same side). In this sense, we would have a side of the planet in permanent light and the other side on permanent darkness. The star would always be hanging from the same point of the sky. This has consequences on the possible climates but it has been found that it is not a major concern in maintaining a wet atmosphere.

You have been quoted as saying that there is a reasonable expectation that this planet may be able to host life. Do we have the ability to detect signatures of life from this distance in a broad sense or do we have to be on or close to Proxima b to be able to ascertain?

With the nextgen instruments we might be able to figure out the presence of a few molecules on the atmosphere of these planets. That is the next step. However, the presence of water and O2 only would not be a definitive evidence for life. What you need are chemical species that would be destroyed in the presence of the other (For instance, O2 + methane would react relatively quickly unless one of them is replenished). Out of equilibrium chemistry would be a really strong evidence for life on a given planet. Of course, we would still want to see it, but one step at a time.

How do you get around the datedness of the data given the time it takes light to travel from there to here, 4.3 years.?

We always see a delayed picture of the system. There is no problem on this because the delay is always more or less the same.

How do you compare the tug of Proxima b on its star to Earth’s on our sun? I am particularly interested in the numbers of the movement both cause on their stars?

Earth moves the Sun at 10 cm/s with a cycle of one year. Proxima b moves the star 1.5 m/s (at least) over an orbital cycle of 11.2 days. The combination of this larger signal with the shorter orbital period makes Proxima b much easier to detect that exact Earth analogs around Sun-like stars.

You have a lifelong passion for exploration of precisely the kind of planets that Proxima b appears to be. Also, you were drawn to Stephen Baxter’s book ‘Proxima’ which strangely foreshadows some of the very things that you might be on to. Describe to me how fiction and fact can converge in the most unexpected ways.

We were already hunting for the ‘signal’ at the time I found and read Stephen Baxter’s world. I found it rather amusing that the basic properties of the planet he describes were pretty close to the ones we were chasing. He makes up a lot of things but he based his world (called Per Ardua) on plausible climate models on scientific literature, so the world he describes is a plausible scenario (best case possibly…).

Can you describe the actual process of observation that you were engaged in? I believe you and team observed it 20 minutes every night between January 19 and March 31 this year using the ESO’s planet-hunting instrument. Do you actually peer into the sky using it or study the spectrographic information produced by this planet-hunting instrument?

We used HARPS installed at the 3.6m ESO telescope at La Silla [in Chile]. The observations were taken by an astronomer on site each night (We didn’t travel to the observatory this time). The only thing we see there are the spectra measured by HARPS.

We followed the star simultaneously with two other observatories (ASH2-SpaceObs and LCOGT). In these cases we did take images of Proxima (many hundreds of them!), but we used those to basically monitor its brightness and activity to be sure the activity was not related to the signal we were trying to confirm.

Finally, what more evidence would you be looking for now and if found, is it your expectation that we may mount an exploration in a reasonable future?

The most obvious thing we are trying to do is to see if the planet transits in front of the star. There is a small (but non-negligible) chance that this happens but it we need to be lucky. If that is the case, we could start characterizing its atmosphere before the end of the year! In the likely event that there are no transits, we will have to wait for E-ELTs and space-based instruments.

September 15, 2016

Jamini Roy (1887-1972) dominated Christie’s auction yesterday of South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art in New York. All twelve of his works were snapped up quite rapidly. Watching the auction live online was a particular delight as I kept traveling between the artist and the art thinking about the state of mind in which the works would have been created and how they were being bid on. By my calculation together they fetched $313,375 with all the pieces selling well above their estimates.

While his total intake for 12 works may be less than the price of a single Husain (below) which fetched $341,000 or a Sabavala ($365,000), there is a certain joyousness about his works that made me happy.

Maqbool Fida Husain’s 1970 ‘Horses’ went for $341,000

There were several striking works such as by the masters Francis Newton Souza, Syed Haider Raza and Satish Gujral apart from the inevitable Husains that sold without much fuss. I particularly like ‘Gujral’s 1954 work ‘The Despair’, Souza’s 1964 Untitled and Jehangir Sabaval’s ‘The White Veni’ (see below).

Raza’s 2011 ‘Punaraagaman’ went for $245,000

Souza’s Untitled 1964 work went for $56,250

Satish Gujral’s ‘The Despair’ (1954) went for $125,000

What also stood out for me was Zarina’s 1969 ‘'untitled work (see below) that fetched $40,000.

Zarina’s 1969 untitled went for $40,000

Then there was this remarkable 1951 work by Jehangir Sabavala titled The White Veni which went for an impressive $365,000, $85,000 beyond the high estimate. I think this was the most expensive lot of the auction.

Jehangir Sabavals ‘The White Veni’ (1951) went for $365,000

A surprise was that an untitled work by Vasudeo Gaitonde,estimated between $1.8 million and $2.2 million, and L’Orage by Raza, estimated between $1 and 1.5 million, did not sell.

September 14, 2016

The world is divided in several groups and blocs engendered by both competing interests and ambitions as well as converging interests and ambitions. We have the seven-member G-7, the eight-member G-8, the 20-member G-20, the 10-member Association of the South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the 4-member Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), the 8-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and of course, the 120-member Non Aligned Movement (NAM). The last is in the midst of its 17th summit from September 13 to 18 in Margarita, Venezuela with its original founder-member and chief driving force India missing from it.

It is a curious absence for Prime Minister Narendra Modi which is being seen in some quarters as deliberate and aimed at subtly expressing discomfort over the antipathies toward the Western world among some members of the giant bloc. In the absence of any official comment other than citing some vague prior engagement for the prime minister one is left to speculate over New Delhi’s motives. The most obvious one is an ideological disengagement by Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from what they perceive to be the outdated legacies of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was also among the NAM’s co-founder. That fits with the BJP’s long-term goal of diminishing Nehru from the national discourse. However, the more immediate rationale could be the likely inability of New Delhi to correct the anti-West posturing that some of the member countries often strike. The host country Venezuela’s pronounced stance against the United States could reflect in the final NAM statement which India may not particularly like.

It is undeniable that the Modi government has made some significant departures from its predecessors from the Congress Party. The prime minister has been trying to fundamentally reorient India’s foreign policy—some might say to utter disaster—and the absence from the NAM summit might be seen from that standpoint. Of course, officially New Delhi still makes polite supportive noises because it cannot fully disregard the whole wide world outside of much smaller blocs.

It is a delicate balancing act for Modi’s New Delhi because it cannot altogether give up on the NAM even as the prime minister wants to stamp foreign policy with his own vision. In any case, foreign policy has become ever more complex with the rise of so many blocs, some of which I mentioned above, which frequently conflict in their primary objectives. While it may be easier for smaller countries to seek the comfort of a bloc forged by some common ethno-geographical affiliations, for India it will become harder as it makes a position for itself among the leading ten or five economies of the world.

I had done a piece about the NAM on August 13, 2012 to coincide with its 16th summit in Teheran, Iran. It might bear repeating here:

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a 51-year-old group of countries (It is not 55-years-old) which foreswear any alliance with or against any distinct power blocs, consists of 120 countries.

Originally conceived in 1951 by India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yugoslavia’s President Josip Broz Tito, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Indonesia’s Sukarno, the NAM has been historically viewed with a combination of distrust and ridicule by the Western powers. Since NAM members are most of the former British colonies, there has always been a degree of condescension shown by the imperialists toward it.

Founded in 1961, the NAM has gone through a cycle of being very influential to being redundant and everything else in between. In the Western estimation, its current status can be summed up in the complex diplomatic parlance as “meh.” That, of course, is a big mistake when you consider that it still represents close to 60 percent of the world.

India still remains the leading light of the NAM. although Egypt has its own existential challenges but seems to have found a way out, Yugoslavia ceased being a country sometime in 1991. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim majority nation, has gone on to become a vibrant economy. Ghana, the first to gain independence among sub-Saharan Africa from colonial masters, too has witnessed a relatively stable economic growth in the past quarter century.

I can name all the 120 NAM countries but it is enough to mention just a few to underscore its importance. Apart from India and Egypt, it has Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Venezuela, North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba, Qatar, Myanmar and the list goes on. On paper, this is a grouping that could exercise vast influence in world affairs but the reality is way more complex because many of them have to either divide their loyalties or balance them along economic, geographical, cultural and even religious lines. Also, since the founding principle of the movement was to eschew any specific bloc alliances, it cannot create its own formal bloc.

The idea of the NAM made sense in a certain period because Nehru, Tito, Nasser, Nkrumah and Sukarno rightly concluded that former colonies or countries that were frequently railroaded needed a platform where they can express themselves independently and perhaps seek meaningful cooperation. Over the decades, particularly since the end of the Cold War aided by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and increasingly globalized and yet localized economic interests, the dynamic has been fundamentally altered. Notwithstanding, there is still a way the NAM can reinvent itself into a constructive alliance to meet massive global challenges.

One immediate example may be seen in the upcoming NAM summit in Tehran on August 30-31. India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reaches Tehran a couple of days earlier.

The United States is deeply aware of not just civilizational ties between India and Iran but the fact that New Delhi enjoys considerable goodwill in Tehran and could play a quietly decisive role in the ongoing standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. Dr. Singh will hold bilateral talks with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which will cover a whole gamut of issues including, either directly or implicitly, the crippling Western sanctions out of which India offers a way out.

Iran is strategically important for India not just because of its oil and gas but also because of its geostrategic location bordering Afghanistan as well as Central Asian countries. While Afghanistan is crucial for India because of Pakistan, not to mention its rich mineral resources, Central Asian countries are important in terms of its energy security. Since Pakistan is ruled out for now as the natural transit and access route for India, New Delhi has to depend on Iran for it. There is no way India can afford to treat Iran as untouchable the way the Western powers can for any number of reasons.

As Manish Chand of the IANS wire reports, “it would be a visit laden with immense symbolic significance” because it is “expected to not only reinforce India's enduring commitment to the movement but also underline New Delhi's strategic intent to deepen ties with sanctions-hit Tehran.”

Manish writes:

“On the bilateral track, the modus operandi of payments for Iranian oil imports amid tightening Western sanctions are sure to figure in the discussions. Despite Western pressure, India has continued importing Iranian oil and has cited its importance for India's energy security, but has cut down its imports from 12 percent to around 10-11 percent.

“A few months ago, India sealed an agreement for paying 45 percent of its oil imports from Iran in rupees. However, after the US and the EU sanctions came into effect over a month ago, shipments have become difficult with not many insurance companies willing to provide transportation cover.

“India is also expected to ask Iran to buy more wheat and other commodities to bridge a massive trade deficit, which currently favors Tehran, sources said.

“According to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), bilateral trade between India and Iran can touch $30 billion by 2015 from the current $13.7 billion.” *

And this is just between two countries out of the 120 NAM. There has been a staggering amount of economic, diplomatic, cultural and geostrategic activity going on between them that the Western powers are all too aware of and wary of. Perhaps the upcoming summit will convince its members to fundamentally reorder the way the NAM operates in order to potentially become the world’s most constructive grouping. After all between them they account for over two billion people in perhaps the most diverse geographical, cultural and religious spread for a single group.

* That forecast has not turned anywhere close to its ambition since the bilateral trade in is still said to be about $14 billion.

September 13, 2016

Dr. Alex Drlica-Wagner of Fermilab, right, explaining to me where in the context of the Milky Way he is looking for dark matter.(Photo: By HTC Android phone)

Searching for dark matter that may or may not exist feels like a staggering paradox. It is believed to constitute some 27% of our universe. Add to this the scientific consensus that 68% of the universe is dark energy and you are left with just 5% of what we can directly see and/or experience in the universe.

That 5% includes all stars, galaxies, asteroids, dust, you, I and Hillary Clinton. Also, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un as well Kim Kardashian. My point is everything we can directly prove the existence of is just a niggardly 5%. Hence the search for dark matter. That search or at any rate deep interest in that search took me to the iconic Fermilab yesterday to meet Dr. Alex Drlica-Wagner. He holds a PhD in physics from Stanford in “Searching for Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies and other Galactic Dark Matter Substructures with the Fermi Large Area Telescope.” Currently, he is Schramm Experimental Fellow at the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics. He is a member of both the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). His primary research focus is the search for dark matter through indirect detection and astrophysical probes. In short, he knows a thing or two or may be even three about dark matter.

I am a wannabe physicist who bathes in the reflected glory of minds such as Dr. Drlica-Wagner. Speaking of bathing, he told me yesterday that "We do live within a bath of dark matter.” Dark matter is supposed to be pervasive across the universe including right around around us but we cannot detect its gravitational perturbation because the brayonic matter, meaning ordinary matter that we can mostly touch and feel and highlight using light, overwhelms dark matter in our immediate neighborhood. Hence scientists such as Dr. Drlica-Wagner have to look for it in galaxies really far far away. He looks at dwarf galaxies between 100,000 light years away and 1 million light years away from the Milky Way. You might recall I had interviewed Dr.Sukanya Chakrabarti in February 2011. Her work is broadly in the same cosmic ball park.

I will publish Alex’s interview either tomorrow or the day after but thought it might be a good idea to have this teaser today. This was my first visit to Fermilab which seems surprising given my abiding interest in physics. I have been in the vicinity of the lab for over a decade and it was only yesterday that I managed to visit. Ironically, dark matter that cannot be seen took me to a place that is so visible.

For me, nothing surpasses nerd talk with those who know their stuff. It was a great pleasure chatting with Alex for about an hour yesterday at his office. I managed to shoot 15 minutes of that conversation on my phone but then it ran out of space. Mobile phones are not like the universe. They do run out of space.

Just to test a couple of my longstanding surmises, which I always do when I talk to scientists in general and physicists in particular, I asked him whether he feels a sense of exasperation at the fact that we do not know what 95% of the universe is made of. His answer was along the expected lines. That you will find tomorrow or soon thereafter. Another question that he thought was “a great question” was when he does find some signature of dark matter what in his imagination would be the most striking its feature. That answer too here tomorrow or soon thereafter. You can see I am trying to make nerd talk exciting for those who are not naturally drawn to it.

We also talked about the trivialities of the human existence and how someone like him squares them with his engagement with such staggering realities as observing massive galaxies hundreds of thousands of light years away from a mountaintop telescope in Chile. But that I am not necessarily going to report it or may be I will. So do come back later.

September 12, 2016

In March last year I wrote the following brief post with some photos about the Mohabbat or Mahabat Khan Maqbara of Junagadh and its utter neglect. I am happy to see the story has not died down. Shoaib Daniyal has done a piece about this spectacular monument for Scroll. Daniyal offers some history behind not just this mausoleum but greater detail about the Junagadh Sultanate which very nearly joined Pakistan after India’s partition.

My post bears repeating just to keep some attention on this remarkable building.

March 29, 2015

The almost incidental presence of the spectacularly intricate Mohabbat or Mahabat Khan Maqbara in Junagadh is very much in line with the fact that every piece of great history here is incidental and in neglect. That goes for the great stone edict of Ashoka (304–232 BCE). So I presume that the authorities of Junagadh city practice equal opportunity indifference.

At a certain time in the morning as the sun breaks out over the Girnar and bathes the city in golden tobacco hues, the Maqbara or the mausoleum can look gold-plated (See the picture above). Those moments are brief and you have to be consciously looking for them.

I shot these pictures around 7.15 a.m. when boys were already out playing cricket in the forecourt of the mausoleum where several 19th century grandees of Junagadh’s royal past have been buried. It did not matter at all to the boys that more often than not their plastic ball would bounce off one of the tombs.

It is in the nature of rulers to want to be feted and deferred to when alive and commemorated after they are dead. Making grand buildings such as the Maqbara are the easiest way to achieve that purpose. Their palaces do the job when they are alive and mausoleums when they are dead.

The Maqbara is a remarkable building not only because it draws its design influences from Euro-Indo-Islamic architecture but also because it is just so self-assured. Even in neglect its glories are hard to hide. I wouldn’t be surprised if the design team of the mausoleum chose the location keeping in mind the way sunlight bathes it when the sun rises over the not too distant Girnar.

It’s the sort of building that would never lose its grandeur no matter what actual physical shape it might be in. It is the sort of building that generously rewards any ordinary photographer. It is also the sort of building that elevates anyone or anything in its vicinity, including eagles getting ready to catch early morning currents. Looking at its extraordinary workmanship and architecture one wonders whether it even mattered that some people were to be buried there.

The Maqbara in all its intricate glory

The majestic facade

The Maqbara’s trademark spiral staircases. They are clockwise and anti-clockwise.

An inevitable cricket game in the forecourt

Sunrise over the Girnar bathes the mausoleum in a glorious golden, tobacco hued light

September 11, 2016

It is rather rare that I impulsively go to the Naperville Riverwalk. During my decade in this small city I would have gone there a dozen times. I had never done it on an impulse but it changed yesterday. A misty and drizzly Saturday morning with the temperature hovering around a perfect 72 F told me it was going to be a gorgeous afternoon. I have observed that when the sky opens up after a caressing drizzle like yesterday, the sunlight is indescribably spectacular.

Barely three miles from where I live the West branch Du Page river becomes a lovely river walk through Naperville downtown. The Du Page river is a 28.3 mile long tributary of the Des Plaines river, which is 133 miles long. I went to the Naperville Riverwalk late in the afternoon around 3. The light was bewitching. Some scattered heavy clouds made it even more striking. The bell tower contrasted brilliantly against slate-grey clouds. Trees looked like trees always look to me—stately and self-assured.

Naperville’s bell tower

However, it was while standing on a footbridge and watching the river water rush under me that I was gifted with some truly memorable sights, especially the one below. It was demanding to be painted.When you see the picture you know what I mean. Having run out of canvases I did the second best thing I could. I painted one digitally. (See the painting at the top of this post).

There was a moment when a neon blue neon beam of light, quite distinct from the blue and grey sky’s reflection in the water, showed up. (See the second picture from the top.) I was so caught up in the moment that I did not look up to see whose reflection it was. For the sake of magic I am going to say put it down in the “Unexplained” column although I am sure there was a perfectly natural explanation for that.